Biography

Great vulnerability is often part and parcel of great artistry. The songs that last decades and weave themselves into the fabric of listeners’ lives are usually the ones in which an artist lays her soul bare for the world to hear. Nora Jane Struthers’ new album Champion is built on these kinds of songs.

The 13-song collection is the follow-up to 2015’s Wake, which earned Struthers acclaim from major outlets like NPR Music, Rolling Stone Country, and “Fresh Air.” Struthers wrote and recorded the album with her longtime road band the Party Line, and the chemistry between her and the other players is palpable. The album, produced by Neilson Hubbard in Nashville, is full to the brim with stellar musicianship, unexpected arrangements that blur the lines between folk, roots, and rock, and an audible sense that everyone in the studio is having a damn good time.

Where Wake explored themes like new love and new beginnings, Champion finds Struthers documenting the trials and tribulations of adult life; decrying the increasingly intrusive nature of technology; and plainly laying out the struggles faced by a young woman grappling with infertility.

“I’m 33 and want to start a family, but when I was 18 I was diagnosed with a condition called premature ovarian failure,” she explains. “I’ve known for a long time that I’m going to have to find other ways to have kids. A lot of the songs on the album are about my personal fertility quest.”

That quest has led Struthers and her husband — musician and songwriter Joe Overton — down many new paths: trying alternative fertility methods, exploring Eastern medicine, and finding new strength in the support system of their partnership. It also led Struthers to see the other parents in her life — friends, relatives, fans — in a new light, an eye-opening experience also reflected on Champion.

“I’ve been watching my friends and family members become new mothers and parents,” she explains. “Everybody’s path there is so different and there are always challenges, but they present in different ways for different people. That’s been really interesting.”

While opening up about such a painful personal journey hasn’t been an easy task for Struthers, she’s happy to have put these experiences to song, in doing so finding her own personal catharsis and hoping that others will experience the same sense of connection and release upon listening.

“There’s a weird societal stigma with infertility,” she explains. “I definitely feel like, in the past whenever I’ve opened up to people I’ve always been met with support and often with stories of someone else’s struggle,” she explains. “I’ve realized that this kind of problem is naturally really isolating, so this is my way to combat that isolation by being a voice for it and also by opening myself up to connect with other people.”

The first track that Struthers wrote for what would become Champion drew heavily from the experiences of others. “Wonderful Home” is a hopeful closing note to the record, though the subject matter that inspired the lyrics was initially painful and difficult.

“I was visiting a friend of mine in West Virginia who was, at the time, four months pregnant, and she was having a really difficult pregnancy,” Struthers shares. “There was a 50/50 chance that it was going to end in a miscarriage, and it had been so hard for her. I was thinking about my own emotional dealings with my infertility and really feeling for her, so I wrote the song for her and her husband about how I think they would be such wonderful parents.”

By the time Struthers and her band entered the studio to record “Wonderful Home,” her friends had tragically lost the first baby, but were happily seven months into a second, healthy, pregnancy. The song became something of an anthem for Struthers, enabling her to move forward with telling her own difficult story. “The arc of that particular song is the arc I hope my own fertility journey takes,” she adds.

There are many hopeful moments on the album. Standout track “Belief” is a nuanced look at the difficulties of staying optimistic in the face of setbacks, illustrating both the fragility and the resiliency of hope. The track builds from Struthers singing over a lone acoustic guitar to a harmony-drenched anthem, mirroring the song’s message of hope and redemption.

“‘Belief’ is the bedrock of the record,” Struthers says. “I’ve really grappled with the mind-body connection. I really wanted to believe in my body but instead I was just on the side of hoping. There’s a strange shame that comes with that that I couldn’t fully grasp.”

While her journey in trying to start a family takes center stage in many on Champion, it’s far from the only topic to which Struthers lends her thoughtful eye and singular voice. On opening song “Each Season,” she and Overton explore the strange, wonderful bond experienced in long-term relationships, the story told over crunchy guitars and gently rolling banjo.

“The first track on the album is a song that my husband and I wrote together,” she says. “It’s the second song we’ve ever written together. It’s about how when you have a partner and have love, time — which is such a strange thing anyway — everything circles and centers around them, and around you two as a unit, and how beautiful that is because it gives you an anchor in the tumultuous sea of time.”

That tune is one of only two co-writes on the album, as Champion is, through and through, a showcase of Struthers’ voice and preternatural gift for storytelling. Coupled with a more deeply realized sense of vulnerability, that narrative tendency makes for a collection of stories that should resonate long after the last notes of the last track end.

“My songwriting style on this album is a real marriage of the narrative style songs I was writing in my early career and then the really autobiographical style of my last album,” Struthers says. “It feels like a natural progression of artistic growth that was both hard and easy at the same time, and I think you can hear that when you listen to it.”

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Enjoyed the privilege of a walk through the astoundingly beautiful and wonderful Muir Woods on our day off. Thankful for #nationalparks #homecomingtour201717333473_236539706812733_4739158435864510464_n

Post and pre show hike here in gorgeous green lush Sonoma County, California.17267884_1289556707797681_7103345500597780480_n

It's so wonderful to see California so GREEN again. That drought was scary. Let's all remember to be grateful for the rain and snow.17332778_663968857124092_1066500582153388032_n

Happy to be back in Sunny Bakersfield, California and staying in the swankiest hotel in town! Joe and I play at Temblor Brewing tonight -7:30pm. Come one come all.17333164_391214691235768_8314848834408677376_n

Nashville's hottest newest boy band - the Three Country Tenors! #americanlegionpost8217265849_231577353978143_6259651427870703616_n

Test run!17126015_1279559345432589_6001459662145191936_n

Got a few hours to kill, so....PARTY LINE BOWLING TIME!17077516_1498881160185130_1917386014976901120_n

Gettting ready to go live on @wyceradio here in Grand Rapids, MI. Tune in here in 1 minute to hear/see us! https://grcmc.org/wyce16908757_1653122818326339_885796340049641472_n

Thank you to @nprmusic for premiering this song and video today! Check it out here: http://n.pr/2lrFIOD. I wrote 'Let's Just Have Supper' with supertalent @korbykorby - it's about how sharing a meal with someone can make it easier to hear their point of view. A lot of people worked hard to make this happen on short notice. Thanks to @scotsax and @staciehuckeba for their work behind the camera, and Marc Lacuesta for getting it all on tape. Watch the complete video and read the story and interview on All Songs Considered! http://n.pr/2lrFIOD Lead vocals and guitar: @norajanestruthers Baritone ukelele and harmonies: @korbykorby Claw hammer banjo: @ban_joe Fiddle: @oliverbatescraven Drums: @highceilingsmusic Accordion: @jamlin Bass: @spacebassface15538702_1266336646792744_4226598348724895744_n

Loading the New van for the first time!!! #tetris #michiganbound #partylinetour201717076171_599689116889671_2197890445042778112_n

Seeds!!! I'm so nervous. I've never planted anything from seed before. I'm not going to be home enough to start any indoors so I'll be sowing directly into my beautiful raised beds. Advice welcome!!!!!16790289_597385823799859_8737616634451066880_n

@thesteeldrivers fans sing along and I love it.16907988_716837411830810_944533750149021696_n

So stoked to be playing at @3rdandlindsley tonight before @thesteeldrivers burn it down! #homecomingtour201716906544_199962930484858_7265838965402370048_n

Spending the afternoon with s Truckload of topsoil- mixing it up with my compost and vermiculite. Apparently tomatoes don't like very "live" soil. This bed is my tomato bed and I'm trying to get 3/4 topsoil, 1/4 compost. #homegrowntomatoes #guyclark16789252_1204290133011937_2703640187224719360_n

Finished! Now I'm off to Bates Nursery to pick up some vermiculite and maybe some topsoil to add to this beautiful compost!16790254_625118354352591_6344958587994898432_n

Building a trellis for pole beans and snap peas out of electrical conduit and nylon string.16908492_1665793750387240_5125321294794981376_n

My parents made it out to our show yesterday in Morganton! My dad even got up and played a few with us and played the fire out of the banjo too. #homecomingtour201716585313_573354349528391_1749613202141872128_n

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The band and I are playing Muddy Creek Cafe And Music Hall in Winston-Salem tonight, and Relish: A Spicy Mix has... fb.me/9sjdO6hVH